Sandcastles and Sand dunes

After another overnight train we arrived into Jaislamer, the furthest point west before reaching the borders of Pakistan.

Jaislamer is known for two things its huge sandcastle standing tall in the middle of the town otherwise known as the fort, and camel safaris!

Jaislamer fort

We had an interesting start to our time in Jaisalmer having arrived at 5am and been picked up by the Hotel Shahi that we'd been emailing. They took us back to the hotel and gave us a room to have a kip in until the manager was awake. Only by 9am the manager still wasn't around and no one seemed bothered to get us to check in. Having decided we'd rather just get on with the day and that we knew other hotels had availability we set off on a hunt for somewhere that actually wanted our business and eventually we ended up at Hotel Pol Haveli who ironically had been waiting at the station for us all along as they had been another we'd enquired with originally!

They were very welcoming and friendly after we'd given our apologies for the confusion and we finally got into our room for a freshen up ready to take on this desert town.

Our first day was spent exploring the town and the Fort. Different to other forts we'd seen, it was filled inside with an array of shops, restaurants, hotels and homes which according to Lonely Planet added up to 3,000 people living within its walls.

View from the fort ramparts

We explored the small streets and shops, stopped for lunch at the Sunset Cafe right on the wall of the Fort and Julia found a lovely lady from Kerala who said she would do Henna for INR50 on the quiet (street price INR100-200) in one of her own designs.

Henna design drying in the desert sunshine

We also booked up our camel safari for the next day with Trotters at their office who although were slightly more expensive than some others (INR2250 for 2 days 1 night from 6am - 11am next day) they had received consistently good reviews on trip advisor and for a change actually answered our questions via emails!

Camel-a-safari-doe-aka-doe

Trotters picked us up at 6am the next day and drove us via their office to lock away our big luggage and on out into the edge of the shrubby desert where we met our wonderful camel guide Phusa (short for Phusaram) and his camels Ali-ba-ba, Rocket and Trigger.

Phusa cooked up a breakfast overlooking the sunrise of eggs, toast, Chai and just in case we hadn't had enough there were bananas and biscuits too!

Chai and sunrise

We then loaded up and got up on our camels to head off on our camel adventure, Phusa and Ali-ba-ba up front, Julia riding Rocket in the middle and Chris on Trigger behind.

Ali-ba-ba, Rocket and Trigger

We soon came to learn the quirks of our camels as we rode for 2 hours across the shrubby dry desert. Ali-ba-ba was always hungry and kept pausing to nibble at bushes along the way. Rocket had a habit for very loud and smelly farts (endured by Chris from behind) and Trigger took a fancy to Julia liking to not ride in line but close to Rocket and Julia's side which meant Julia had to ensure the very smelly burps of Trigger in return! As Phusa put it... "crazy camels!".

Trigger happy!

We learnt from Phusa that he had been doing camel safaris for 30+ years and that he didn't like the hundreds of wind turbines stretching for miles across the desert that had been placed there in the last 5 years (we were walking most our of journey through wind turbines), which if we're honest, they did spoil the landscape but they have to power the tourist industry somehow and at least it's green!

We also discovered that he rented his camels from a "nice boss", and if he was to buy them they would cost him £250 each! I think at that point Chris finally realised his plan to exchange Julia for a camel probably wasn't worth it!

Phusa and his homemade Chapattis

We stopped on route for a 3 hour lunch break to give the camels a rest, shelter from the sun and so that lunch could be prepared and cooked on a fire lit there and then from a few twigs and one match. Phusa cooked a delicious vegetable rice, vegetable curry with extra spice on the side and lots of homemade chapattis. We again were very full and ready for a doze before setting off again on the camels for another 3 hours.

A desert feast!

We arrived to the bigger dunes (having finally passed all the turbines) where we set up camp. Phusa let the camels roam but tied their front two legs loosely so they could move but not stray far as it was mating season so any sign of a female and they would have been long gone!

The big dunes!

We settled down on the dunes with a mug of Chai to enjoy the stunning sunset over the desert.

Sunset on the dunes

Meanwhile Phusa cooked up another feast of vegetable curry, rice, chapattis and rice pudding for dessert, and sang a few songs to us around the campfire including his very addictive and catchy improvised Camel Safari Song "Doe-aka-doe" in which his camels, Chris, I and chapattis featured in the verses!

We slept on mattresses and blankets that our trusty camels had carried for us. Bedding down under the stars and the light of an almost full moon. With the moon so bright and the dust of the desert the stars were visible but no more than we'd seen in remote areas of the UK. Julia did however wake at 4am and finally spotted the Plough!  

After another beautiful sunrise on the dunes and a filling breakfast, Phusa rounded up the camels who had managed to stray 2km and we set off in the cool of the day. It was such a wonderful time of day to travel by camel back over the dunes, trotting some of the way to where we met our Jeep pick up.

Rocket and Julia loaded up and ready for the ride

We were sad to say goodbye to Phusa and our camels; we had become fond of Rocket and Trigger and our wonderful chef / companion, but with an epic 27 hour journey by train to Varanasi we needed to rest our now sore bums and grab enough supplies to keep us going for this next stretch of our Indian adventure.